


you're in bloom

by minouribia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on Hanahaki Disease, Canon Divergence - Season 3, F/F, No Body Swap or Curse, Post-Neverland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minouribia/pseuds/minouribia
Summary: Emma doesn’t notice the first vine.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 116





	you're in bloom

Emma doesn’t notice the first vine. 

There’s a light brush against her foot she feels every now and again, but she doesn’t register the vine wrapped around her ankle until leaves start to bloom. 

She’s laying on her barely comfortable couch at the center of her empty living room in a barely lived in apartment thinking of everything yet nothing at all when she glances down at her ankle. 

Green leaves of varying sizes sprout from a thin green, almost brown vine loosely wrapped around her left ankle. She tugs her foot closer, hunting through her brain for a memory of putting it on that isn’t there. 

The leaves feel like any other freshly bloomed leaves, and that is to say delicate, tearing at a harsh pull in any direction, and smooth to the touch. 

Scissors cut through the vine with ease, and Emma watches as it falls onto her tile floor. She throws it out moments later, unable to shake the feeling of roots already growing deep inside her stomach. 

* * *

It grows back. 

She has no idea when it returns, but it does. It makes itself known when leaves crunch with a near silent, yet not silent enough, sound inside her boots. 

“What was that?” asks Regina, sitting across her at Granny's, taking a sip of her morning tea. One of her heels ghosts over Emma’s boot, and Emma resists the urge to flinch away. She doesn’t though, because that’d be too suspicious. 

Instead, Emma shrugs. 

“No idea,” she lies, keeping her face blank, despite the things that warrant any other reaction. Horror, fear, confusion, shock, all to name a few. 

She slips off her boots the moment she closes the door behind her, immediately looking at her ankle. There are two near identical vines on her ankle this time. The new one is tighter than the first, feeling a lot like a hair tie around her wrist, and sits higher on her ankle. 

She clips them again, refusing to think about the implications of it all. 

* * *

The vines don’t stop. 

She gives up clipping them when she wakes up with a fifth wrapped around her upper arm. They grow at seemingly random, appearing as they see fit, with leaves that Emma swears grow and shrink when she isn’t looking. 

* * *

She doesn’t make the connection until the ninth vine. 

Regina sits across from her, making an off handed, snark filled remark about her future with either Neal or Hook.

Because it’s been months, and neither of them have stopped or even toned down their whining for her attention, and she feels the ninth curl around her upper thigh. 

In that moment, that second long pause after Regina's sentence ends, a thousand memories flash through her mind. They’re reminders of small sensations she’d brushed off during the times they’d spent together, things that shouldn’t matter but somehow still do. 

It’s not random, and she knows the cause, if only partially. 

* * *

It isn’t Regina’s fault.

She isn’t sure of much when it comes to the vines, but she knows Regina didn’t do this. In the few times she’s felt it, Regina’s magic has never felt like this.

Regina’s magic at worst can be harsh with barely restrained guilt threatening to leak through every blow, and at best be overwhelmingly sweet like a vanilla candle in an open bakery. It’s not Regina. 

Yet, it’s her who causes them to sprout. 

They sprout when Regina talks about Neal, or Hook, or any other man who’s under the false impression he has a chance with her. When she says everything as if it’s an irrefutable fact to her, and Emma doesn’t grasp why until much later. 

* * *

Unrequited love. 

She wakes up one morning from a dream she can’t remember with the thought on her tongue, and everything clicks into place.

It’s not the reminders that Neal and Hook both want her, it’s not some kind of sick jealousy, nor is it being around Regina. 

It’s not having Regina. 

Because Neal wants her, and Hook wants her, and Regina doesn’t. Regina will never see herself as even an option for Emma. Regina shouldn’t be an option; she should want Neal or Hook. 

But she doesn’t. 

It’s the longing for things she shouldn’t that lets the vines grow.

She imagines thorny vines are wrapped around her heart too, like barbed wire fences, growing tighter every time she’s reminded of possibilities built on an impossible wish. 

* * *

People notice the vines. 

It’s inevitable, and happens months after the first vine, and Emma still feels dizzying panic because it’s all so soon. 

A particularly tight vine wraps around her wrist, poking out from the sleeves of every piece of clothing she owns. Until now, they’d been out of sight, and easy to hide.

There’s no way to hide this one, not unless she wore gloves, and that would only draw even more attention to it. 

“Emma, what’s that?” asks Snow, grabbing her wrist without warning. 

“Nothing,” she lies, jerking it away. Her tone is accidentally molten in a way that makes even her wince with the sheer heat seeping out. 

“That wasn’t nothing. Did you get a new bracelet?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I just don’t want everyone making that big of a deal about it,” Emma says. 

“Why not? I think it’s pretty.” 

Emma shrugs, changing the topic. Snow lets it go, but there are seeds there that will grow into lively green sprouts one day. 

Emma knows she can’t hide for much longer, not when the vines are making themselves known, and she’s pushing everyone away to keep them unknown. 

* * *

Regina notices the vines. 

They sit in her study with drinks in their hands, and they've had enough already for Emma to know neither of them will be driving tonight. Emma watches Regina’s lips move, barely registering a word coming out of them. 

“So, what are your thoughts, Miss- sorry, Em-ma.” 

Emma blinks without comprehension. “Uh. Sure…?” 

“You didn’t hear a word of what I just said, did you?” Emma’s cheeks flush, and she shakes her head. “I asked if you’d be agreeable to watching Henry while I conduct business out of town for a weekend.” 

“Out of…” A thorny vine curls into her other wrist, and for the first time, the vines draw blood. Blood that’s dripping into plain sight from her jacket. 

Because she knows Regina’s schedule, and she knows there’s only one reason Regina would need to leave town right now, and it has little to do with business. 

“Emma?” she says with wide eyes. She stumbles forward, crouching in front of her with a frown tugging at her lips. Emma winces at the hand grabbing her wrist, twisting it so she can inspect it further. “Emma,” she breathes out with more understanding than Emma’s comfortable with. Or maybe it's not understanding, maybe it's her trying to cushion the fast approaching judgment. 

“What?” she mumbles, lowering her eyes to the patterned rug laid out at the center of the room. She'll have to remember it. It's probably the last thing she'll ever see in this house. “Stop that. I don’t need your pity. Or sympathy. Or whatever."

Because Regina knows, and everything is turning to ash in front of her, and it's over.

She tugs her wrist away from Regina who lets it go. 

“It’s not pity, Emma,” Regina says softly, causing Emma's eyes to draw back to her. She stands, looking at her with new eyes Emma can't comprehend. 

“Then what is it?” 

Regina says nothing, instead unbuttoning the bottom of her blouse and tugging it up. Vines, very familiar vines, are coiled around her stomach, climbing up her chest until they’re out of sight, hidden under the rest of the blouse. 

Emma shakes her head because this isn’t how it works out for people like her. Those vines are for someone else, someone who is anyone but her. 

“Do you know what causes them?” 

“Yeah, unrequited lo- unrequited… romantic interest. Or something like that. It became pretty obvious after a while.” 

“It’s not unrequited love. Not fully, at least,” she says, a careful look on her face. “If these vines are what I think they are, it's not the love itself. It's the regret that comes with it. This kind of vine is never truly broken, not by scissors or tearing them off. Regret, or lack there of, is the only thing that will work.” Her gaze is intense, and Emma looks away from her, refusing to swim in the dangerous waters Regina is trying to lure her into. 

It's better this way. 

“I don’t see how that changes things.” 

“Emma, dear, have I ever told you that you’re an idiot?” A small yet world stopping smile threatens to form on Regina’s face. 

“Yes, often. What does-“ 

Regina crouches down again, leaving their faces level. Tentative fingers brush against Emma’s jawline, eventually growing confident to cradle Emma's face with her hand. “The only way to get rid of the vines is to shake the regrets that brought them to light.” 

“Smaller words, Regina.” 

“Emma, I love you. I know you love me. There’s nothing to regret anymore. We are exactly where we’re supposed to be.” 

Emma blinks and stares with an uncomprehending look. “What?” 

“I said-“ 

The words catch up to Emma mid-sentence, and she all but lunges at Regina. She stumbles back for the briefest moment, being caught, steadied, and tugged closer by the arm Emma wraps around her. Regina all but melts against her, somehow ending up on top of her on the loveseat.

“Say it again,” she whispers, pulling away to look Regina in the eyes. 

“I love you," she says after a moment, more timid, but with the same intensity as the first time. 

Disbelief is overwhelming inside her, but there’s also hope, and love, and positive things she had no idea she had the ability to feel so strongly. The pressure against her wrist disappears, along with all the other spots scattered around her body.

She’d grown so used to them over the past months, but their disappearance is like taking that first breath of air after too long underwater. 

Regina’s vines are scattered on the floor already, laying beside hers in a messy pile that Regina will probably lose her mind over once they both regain the ability to think. 

Until then, they live in a bubble of contentment. 

* * *

There are questions, of course. 

All of which have much simpler answers than Emma had anticipated. 

“Where did the vines come from? Is it like a disease?” she asks with Regina laying against her, both of them still on the loveseat in her study. 

She runs a hand mindlessly through the other woman's hair, feeling whole in a strange yet wonderful way. 

“Do you remember the tree in Neverland?” Emma hums because how could she forget something like that. Everything about that day remains stuck in her head, playing in vivid detail.

They both regained and nearly lost their son that day. 

“I don’t suppose I can know for sure, but my guess has something to do with it. Did you ever notice how similar they look?”

“I guess.” Looking at the ones still tangled beside them on the carpet with new understanding, Emma can definitely notice the similarities. She can feel them. 

Because these vines, no matter how small, felt like the ones tying them to that tree. 

“The weekend trip was for me to research. I needed… time. Alone,” Regina continues. “As you can likely relate to, I was… rather wary of you finding out. I thought it'd be best if no one knew I was there, let alone in town.” 

“Oh.” 

“But you did find out.” Regina smiles, content. 

“Yeah, I guess I did. Is that- that’s okay, right?”

“Of course it is.” Tentatively, Emma slips her free hand into Regina's. “We can still do that if you’d like. I believe it’s run its course, but I’m not entirely sure this has been documented before. Not many people return from Neverland.” 

“Maybe tomorrow. I like this.” 

“Tomorrow,” Regina agrees. 

  
  



End file.
